We’re teaming up with other food and garden bloggers to host Fall Fest 2010, a season-long garden party. Each week we’ll feature favorite garden-to-table recipes and tips to help you enjoy the bounty, whether you’re harvesting your own goodies or buying them fresh from the market. To join in, check out awaytogarden.com.

Marshmallows are dessert. They’re made of sugar and are positively dreamy when floating in a cup of homemade hot cocoa. They’re probably at their best when charred on an open flame (on a stick found in the woods, of course) stacked on a piece of slowly-melting chocolate and smooshed between two graham crackers. Or, if you’ll admit to certain guilty pleasures, marshmallows are pretty fabulous when melted with butter, mixed with cereal and formed into Rice Krispie Treats. There are endless ways to enjoy these sweet, springy confections, but the dinner table is surely not the best place to showcase them.

Enter the ubiquitous marshmallow-topped sweet potato casserole. Surely invented to trick kids and adults into eating a not-so-popular tuber: the sweet potato, Sweet Potato Casserole is featured prominently on Thanksgiving tables and in womens’ magazines — right next to the canned onion-topped green bean casserole — this time of year. Well it’s high time we put marshmallows back where they belong, on the dessert buffet, and the can take those sweet potatoes with them.

We’re teaming up with other food and garden bloggers to host Summer Fest 2010, a season-long garden party. Each week we’ll feature favorite garden-to-table recipes and tips to help you enjoy the bounty, whether you’re harvesting your own goodies or buying them fresh from the market. To join in, check out awaytogarden.com.

Looking for a quick, meatless weeknight meal that isn’t PB&J? Of course you are. As temperatures outside decrease, our desire for warm, comforting foods increases. But time spent in the kitchen and waistlines needn’t increase as well. Spice Goddess Bal Arneson’s Cauliflower With Sweet Potatoes is a quick, healthy Indian main dish that will warm you up and fill you up. It’s perfectly spiced without being spicy (though heat-lovers might choose to saute some jalapenos along with the onions in the recipe), and if you can manage to save any, the leftovers are great for lunch the next day, or for breakfast served alongside a fried egg.

We’re teaming up with other food and garden bloggers to host Summer Fest 2010, a season-long garden party. Each week we’ll feature favorite garden-to-table recipes and tips to help you enjoy the bounty, whether you’re harvesting your own goodies or buying them fresh from the market. To join in, check out awaytogarden.com.

If you think you hate beets, chances are you’ve just never had them cooked properly. Perhaps your 8-year-old self was force-fed slimy, pickled beets from a can, so of course you’re still fearful. Well it’s time to give beets a chance. In celebration of Fall Fest 2010, this week, we’re talking about root vegetables. And among the potatoes, rutabagas, carrots. turnips and other fine veggies in this group, beets stand out as an under-appreciated jewel . . . a diamond in the rough . . . a ruby in the dirt, if you will.

We’re teaming up with other food and garden bloggers to host Summer Fest 2010, a season-long garden party. Each week we’ll feature favorite garden-to-table recipes and tips to help you enjoy the bounty, whether you’re harvesting your own goodies or buying them fresh from the market. To join in, check out awaytogarden.com.

It’s almost over, kids. Garden season, that is. At least in many parts of the country. The big spike in hard squashes, the return of spinach, and the appearance of apples and pears in farmer’s markets means the end is near. But don’t despair, this week of fall fest is all about the ways you can make your produce last a teeny bit longer.

We’re teaming up with other food and garden bloggers to host Summer Fest 2010, a season-long garden party. Each week we’ll feature favorite garden-to-table recipes and tips to help you enjoy the bounty, whether you’re harvesting your own goodies or buying them fresh from the market. To join in, check out awaytogarden.com.

The crisp, sweet, sometimes-earthy, sometimes-citrus-y flavor of pears is naturally enhanced by the flavors of honey, wine and cheese. Raw pears are great sliced on a cheese plate alongside some brie, Stilton, sharp cheddar, or Gorgonzola — a drizzle of honey is optional, or a nice side offering. Choose your wine based on your pear preference: Anjou pears work well with Sauvignon Blanc, Barlett with Brut Champagne and Bosc with Cabernet Sauvignon. But pear season is short so you should make the most of it, and consider not just a cheese plate, but pear recipes that take advantage of perfect partners like wine, honey and cheese, as well. Say, for example, Laura Calder’s Slow-Baked Honey Wine Pears, pictured above and featured on Laura’s show, French Food at Home. Need more inspiration? Here you go:

We’re teaming up with other food and garden bloggers to host Summer Fest 2010, a season-long garden party. Each week we’ll feature favorite garden-to-table recipes and tips to help you enjoy the bounty, whether you’re harvesting your own goodies or buying them fresh from the market. To join in, check out awaytogarden.com.

At long last, it’s squash and pumpkin season. There’s so much to love about winter squashes in their many forms — butternut, acorn, buttercup, spaghetti, delicata, hubbard, kabocha, sweet dumping, Cinderella pumpkins, sugar pie pumpkins. Yes, they all look lovely in a basket on your porch, or carved up with scary faces and all of that, but they deserve better — you deserve better — here are some great ways to take advantage of these beautiful-to-gaze-at but even better-to-eat vegetables.

We’re teaming up with other food and garden bloggers to host Summer Fest 2010, a season-long garden party. Each week we’ll feature favorite garden-to-table recipes and tips to help you enjoy the bounty, whether you’re harvesting your own goodies or buying them fresh from the market. To join in, check out awaytogarden.com.

In this edition of Fall Fest 2010, we’re talking about the salads of fall. It’s true that the warmer months are better-known for garden-and-farm fresh salads, but just because there’s a bit of a chill in the air, doesn’t mean you have to go eating all heavy. Fall’s bounty — squash, spinach, beans, beets, figs, grapes, apples — this is all great salad stuff. In fact, I’d argue that it’s even better than the zucchini, peppers, corn and peaches we started the season with. So without further ado, here are 5 fantastic salads you must try (before comfort season really takes over).

We’re teaming up with other food and garden bloggers to host Summer Fest 2010, a season-long garden party. Each week we’ll feature favorite garden-to-table recipes and tips to help you enjoy the bounty, whether you’re harvesting your own goodies or buying them fresh from the market. To join in, check out awaytogarden.com.

﻿Let’s face it, apples go a long way in making up for the fact that there are no more strawberries, no more zucchini or corn and no more tank tops and flip flops. During this week of Fall Fest 2010, we’re talking about apples, the generous fruits that see us through the transition of summer-to-fall. An apple, dusted with cinnamon and simply baked, tucked under a buttery crust or a thick layer of spiced crumb topping, or cooked down into a sweet applesauce is quite possibly the most comforting food of all. Forget meat loaf and mac and cheese, nothing conveys warmth and coziness like a an apple pie, like Tyler Florence’s Ultimate Caramel Apple Pie, above. Here’s a roundup of some of the most tempting apple desserts out there — some of yours, some of ours — that are sure to escort you into the colder months, and will make you forget about your flip flips for another year.

We’re teaming up with other food and garden bloggers to host Summer Fest 2010, a season-long garden party. Each week we’ll feature favorite garden-to-table recipes and tips to help you enjoy the bounty, whether you’re harvesting your own goodies or buying them fresh from the market. To join in, check out awaytogarden.com.

We’ve transitioned from summer fest to fall fest, and this week we’re talking about spinach. Paneer with Spinach, also called Palak Paneer, is a vegetarian Indian dish made with . . . well, spinach, and paneer, a firm Indian cheese. It’s quite popular; it gets prominent placement on Indian menus and is usually part of an all-you-can-eat Indian buffet. But making your own at home is easier than you think.